


Fall into your Sunlight

by mandymilkovish



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 21:11:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7137329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandymilkovish/pseuds/mandymilkovish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Justin Taylor is the most beautiful thing Brian has ever laid eyes on, all the world’s radiance dimming in comparison to the boy who reigned in the sun."<br/>Or: A deeper look at Brian and Justin's last night together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall into your Sunlight

He looks down at the boy beneath him, awash in yellow light, sticky with sweat, heavy eyelids falling slightly closed. Brian brings his hand to Justin’s face. Memorizes the curve of his jaw and the warmth of his skin and the tilt of his smile. Thinks about how beautiful the mind beneath him is; all bravery and softness, light and passion, hope and forgiveness. Thinks of when they first met, of the ways they have changed and grown together, hurt and healed, fallen and lost, but have never given up. Justin Taylor is the most beautiful thing Brian has ever laid eyes on, all the world’s radiance dimming in comparison to the boy who reigned in the sun.  
  
Brian holds him here. Knows that they may never be like this again. Prays to whoever is listening that they will be. He holds him here and speaks with his touches: a silent thank you, whispered into the dark of the night, words that Brian cannot speak but fervently believes in. He caresses Justin’s cheek, clings to him tightly. Thanks Justin for showing him what it means to love, to be loved, to give yourself to someone, body and soul and mind, without losing track of who you are. Thanks him for never giving up, for forgiving Brian when he couldn’t forgive himself, for understanding the soul that Brian hides beneath rough words and harsh mistakes. For standing by his side since the beginning; for never, never letting go.  
  
Brian lays there, and holds him, and wonders in the back of his mind how the universe conspired to create the image beneath him.  
  
(He does not know, but he offers up thanks for this, too.)  
  
…  
Justin lies there beneath the man he loves, every inch of their bodies pressed together, a painting of hope and wonder and beauty. Brian’s hand smooths over his face, eyes burning into Justin’s, and he thinks of how the man above him is the most beautiful work of art he has ever seen.  
  
They do not speak; they do not need to. Justin feels Brian’s unsaid words course within him and he thinks of how he got here. The way he and Brian have fallen apart but always melded back together, their souls so intertwined that not even the universe knew how to tear them apart. Thanks Brian silently for never letting go, for always loving Justin with open arms and a rope tied around his waist so that he could find his way home, time and time again. For loving him so completely, despite being so terrified. For letting him in under the wire even when it seemed too big of a risk. For saving him in ways that remain unfathomable to Justin, and for showing him how to build yourself up again when the world has torn you down.  
  
The morning will come, and they will part, but for now they hold each other here, silent gratitude soaking the air.  
  
Justin lies there beneath the man he loves and wonders how he could be so lucky to have defeated the universe.  
  
(He does not know, but he thanks the universe for letting them win the battle, anyways.)  
  
…  
“What if this is the last time?”  
  
Justin does not know what time it is when Brian whispers the words in his ear, heavy with sleep and carrying the weight of fear. Early morning, if he had to guess—the sun barely peeking over the horizon, waiting for the moon to fall prey to exhaustion and let it take over. Their bodies are still tangled together, front to front, glued so tightly that it is beyond him how they could ever be pried apart. He wonders if Brian has slept, knows he has not. There will be other times for sleep, days and weeks and months stretched out ahead of them with no end in sight; times to sleep when they are not in the process of letting go.  
  
Justin’s breath catches when he hears the words, and for a moment he thinks foolishly that he has died here, sweaty beneath the man he loves and clinging to every piece of their story, pages of a book that have been torn to shreds and carefully taped back together time and time again. There are worse ways to go, he decides.  
  
But he is not dead, and the sun will muster up its courage, face the moon in all its bright ferocity, and Justin will say goodbye, and Brian will wake up to an empty bed and a place that is no longer home, and the world will keep spinning.  
  
“It won’t be,” he breathes back, letting the words fall into the nape of Brian’s neck and seep into the world surrounding them, the world that has nurtured them into fruition, guided them into becoming. They hang there; tinted by the hint of a promise, the fullness of hope.  
  
“You don’t know that,” Brian echoes from earlier. The words are soft where they should be rough, terrified where they should be fearless, and Justin wishes that saying goodbye felt a little less like letting go. Brian presses a soft kiss to his neck, his jaw, his cheek. Repeats himself. “You don’t know that.”  
  
“You’re right,” Justin concedes, because he is. “I don’t.” A pause here; a moment of bated breath and bodies stiffened with fear. Justin inhales, exhales, forces faith to run through his veins. “Neither of us can know what the future holds. But we can hope. Believe that we can beat this like we always have before.” He brings his hand up to Brian’s face, thumbs the skin there, memorizes the way it feels to be in imperfect love: messy and beautiful, strong and passionate, tender and hard.  
  
Brian seems to still, almost, at these words; for a moment, or minutes, or hours he lies motionless above Justin, barely breathing, and Justin wonders absentmindedly if he has fallen asleep. Then:  
  
“And if we don’t?”  
  
The words are quietly deafening, filling Justin to the brim with the jumbled emotions of the way he loves Brian Kinney; of the way he has always loved him, since he was seventeen and eager and naïve, since he had first tasted the man’s name on his lips and his skin beneath his tongue. He is twenty-two now, lost the naivety of his youth long ago; has learned what it is to lose and grieve and hurt; understands the man above him in a way that he never would’ve dreamed. He knows the roads of Brian’s skin and the crevices of his heart and the fearful love of his soul like his favorite book. He is twenty-two, and Brian is almost thirty-four, and they have grown together, discovered and studied the meanest, ugliest parts of one another, and Justin loves him more than ever, anyways.  
  
“Then I still love you,” he says, and his voice holds conviction this time. “I still love you, like I always will, no matter where we are.” He pulls back, holds Brian’s face above his own, forces their eyes to meet. “More and more every day. I still love you.”  
  
On another day, he thinks, Brian may have laughed at these words, spitting out quick retorts about the overly sappy speech, told Justin to quit watching so many hetero romance movies, kissed him long and deep and happy anyways.  
  
But this is not another day, and the sun grows braver by the minute, and Justin knows that Brian Kinney cannot muster the strength to joke or the words he needs to tell Justin how immensely, how completely he loves him. So he kisses him instead, soft and persistent and begging, letting their mouths burn together.  
  
And if this really is the last time, then Justin will know every day that Brian Kinney’s love will never waver.  
  
…  
(He had told Justin once that his place was only big enough for one person. When Justin leaves in the morning, disentangling their bodies that so desperately want to remain together, Brian thinks that maybe those words were the biggest lie he ever told.)  
  
…  
In the darkest hours of night, Brian admits to himself that the loft does not feel like home when Justin is gone. He wakes up in the morning to warmth that is quickly eradicated when he realizes that there is no body next to him, that the warmth of the sun disappeared when Justin did.  
  
It is at these times that Brian thinks he is both weaker and stronger than he ever has been before.  
  
In the lowest points of his longing for Justin, Brian reminds himself of the person he has become: brave and strong, beautiful and wise, still haunted by the past but not defeated by it. He reminds himself of the way that time has threatened him again and again, and of the way that Justin held his hand and helped him defeat it. That time believed itself to be the strongest force in the universe until it laid eyes on them, scarred and tired but still standing, bonded by a force stronger than all else. Time can no longer scare him in the way it once did.  
With every passing minute, Brian misses the constant warmth of the sun that had shined down on him for so long. But he has already been filled with the sun’s light, fallen into its fiery passion, and he thinks, for once, that it is enough.


End file.
